Views on the Way Up
by shinytinfoil
Summary: A psionic driven to insanity by her powers. Can Mutant X help her, or will it be her that helps them?


Author's Note: This is my second Mutant X fan fiction, this one focusing on the psionic powers. (my first one, Chaos in Oneself, was about ferals and the feral mindset)   
  
Summary: A psionic driven to insanity by her powers. Can Mutant X help her, or will it be her that helps them?  
  
Pairings: Teagan/Jesse  
  
Another Author's Note: As with all my stories, there will be NO BRENNAN/SHALIMAR WHATSOEVER! NONE! NADA! ZIP! ZILCH! I do not think their 'attraction' on the show is anything more than lust, both of them being very attractive people. I am a Jesse/Emma fan myself, but I'm making this one Jesse/Teagan because Teagan told me she liked Jesse better than Brennan.  
  
Nietzsche Moment: The title comes from a Nietzsche aphorism about tourists that states "They climb mountains like animals, stupid and sweating; one has forgotten to tell them that there are beautiful views on the way up." This has been your Nietzsche Moment, may you be enlightened!  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to the Tax Man. (*that annoying song starts playing in the background*) Ooooo, the Tax Man... No, seriously, Mutant X belongs to... someone that is not me. Don't sue me.  
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The club was packed with people, emotions running high and pulsating with the pounding music that only echoed the pounding in my skull as I stumbled blindly towards the exit. A woman brushed against me and my mind lept into her's, running through the channels of her brain until I thought her every thought, felt her too-tight leather corset constricting my lungs and felt the agony of heels a size too small for her. Then the contact was broken and my mind moved on to another host, and another, pupils dialating too fast to track as my iris' strobed from brown to blue to hazel as I became person after person, unable to return to myself but desperatley trying. Then I reached the door and burst out into the blessed stillness of the night, the pounding in my head easing as the chilled night air became the only thing touching my skin, blowing away the memory of the club's interior.  
  
I leaned against the wall and took a shaky breath, running my fingers through my blond hair as though to collect my wayward mind in my palm. But my palm came away empty, because my mind had long ceased to reside within the sanctuary of my skull, choosing instead to quest about formless, a parasite looking for a host's feelings to feed on, looking for a mind to latch onto and control.  
  
Control. That's what had started all this. Using my control of strangers' thoughts to boost sales, my mind had become addicted to the feeling of power, of deciding the fate of a person I had never met and probably never would again, and suddenly my mind was no longer my own. I was starting to forget what color my eyes really were, and that scared me.  
  
My moment of solitude was broken by the approach of a group of club-goers. Without even glancing at them, I ran in the other direction, my flat-soled sneakers pounding the sidewalk with every stride as I sought to put as much distance between myself and others as possible. My heartbeat took on a frenzied rhythm as my feet carried me away, not paying attention to the directions my mind tried to give.  
  
I don't know how long I ran, or how far, crossing streets and dodging cars with an agility born of adrenaline, ignoring the cries of irate drivers in my rush. I finally skidded to a halt outside a mini-mart, where the only person around was asleep at her register, peacefully dreaming. I put my hands on my knees and breathed deeply, trying to get control of my heartbeat and nearly succeeding.   
  
I caught sight of my reflection in the store window glass and walked over to it, leaning in close. "Help," I whispered to it. That was what I needed. Help. Where in this trashy neighborhood was I going to find help? I flung my gaze around and it landed on a pay phone. Adam. Mutant X. Where was that card he'd given me? I fumbled around in my jeans pockets until I found it. Written in bold type were ten digits: 891-252-4357. Easy enough. I walked over to the phone booth and picked up the phone. Having no change, I punched zero.  
  
A female voice answered. "Operator." Even over the phone my mind was trying to take over hers.  
  
"Um, hi," I stammered, trying to concentrate. "I need to make a collect call." That was right, wasn't it? That was what I was supposed to say.  
  
"Do you have the number?" I read the number off the card. "One moment." There was a pause, then the phone started ringing. A man picked up.  
  
"Adam?"   
  
"No, this is Jesse," the man said, and I realized that the mind I was trying to pull away from was indeed not Adam. "Adam isn't here right now, but maybe I can help. Can you tell me your name?" I think he had realized I was a panicked crazy person and adjusted his voice accordingly.  
  
My name? Oh, yeah. "Teagan. Teagan Davis."  
  
I heard typing as he punched my name into his computer. "Okay, Teagan. What's your problem?" He didn't mean it sarcastically.  
  
"I can't control it anymore!"  
  
"You mean your mind-melding?" He was reading some kind of file on me: I could see it through his eyes.  
  
"Yes! It's getting so I don't even have to make contact for it to work. While we're having this conversation, I'm reading your mind." Not to freak him out, or anything...  
  
"Okay, Teagan, I need you to listen to me. Are you listening carefully?"  
  
"Mhmm." I closed my eyes in concentration.  
  
"I'm going to give you some directions that will take you to a place where you can be safe until we come get you. Do you have something to write on?"  
  
"Just tell me. I can remember." He told me to go two blocks back the way I came, then go up a side street to a bar and walk all the way back and down a flight of stairs. I was to wait there until someone from Mutant X could come.  
  
I hung up the phone and took a breath, feeling clearer than I had in a while, now that I had a path laid out for me. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I trotted towards the place where I had been guaranteed safety.  
  
The bar was where he had said it would be, and, ignoring the looks of other customers, I walked through to the back and practically flew down the stairs, slamming a thick steel door behind me once I found the room, to discover that the walls, floor and ceiling were lead-lined, providing protection between my mind and the people above me. Heaving a sigh of relief, I collapsed on the nearest horizontal surface- a table- and dropped off into the first actually restful sleep in a long time. I hoped that the Mutant X people would take their time.   
  
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What do you think? I'd like to know! (*I WANNA KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING...*) Sorry, I'm hyped up on oldies music. 


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